Giving thanks...

It feels like forever and a day since I have posted anything here. This morning, as I was looking for a document on my Mac (and not finding it), I stumbled across some words I wrote back in 2014 around Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if I ever did anything with them, but they felt poignant to me, especially as I come up on a big birthday in a couple of weeks. They are words it will be good to revisit often and add to from time to time. These words, like a letter I wrote to myself five years ago:

I think about nature, always, and the beauty and grace and infinite wisdom I find in her. I think of the miracle that is my body, which - even oft abused - ever heals and supports my consciousness along the way. I think of the suffering in my life that has honed my eye for beauty in such a way that only a heart broken wide open so many times can let in the love and light in such spectacular ways.

Too, I think of the disenfranchised among us - those who are adrift in a world too busy to notice, and those who have shut themselves off from others in their desperate self-punishment for not measuring up to expectations they have assumed.

I think of those who cannot recognize the beauty and blessings in their lives - whose eyes are so shrouded by need, fear and grief, say nothing of those trapped in war zones.

I think of parents grieving their children and lonely old ladies. Of children so spoiled with riches they know nothing of value.

Each year into my life, I feel less and less want for things, for possessions, for stuff. Each year into my life, I feel more grateful for beauty, for grace, for fresh air and clean water (harder and harder to find, as the world is polluted more and more with pesticides and pollution).

Each year into my life I find more depth and meaning in the fewer friendships that really stick around for the duration.

Each day into my life I am grateful to the bottom of my being for the earth kissing my feet, the sky inviting me to stand tall, the waters offering to cleanse my spirit, the sun warming my heart. I am ever grateful for the beauty that graces all of it so long as my vision is clear. I am grateful for the grace of time, containing all possibilities at once, leaving nothing out. I am thankful for the moon and stars, who tell us about our ancestors and guide us home, for trees who have always listened to me and offered steady embrace. I am thankful for the winged ones who effortlessly shift my perspective to the clouds and back down, the furry critters who call me home even though they see all of me. I am grateful for the deep, authentic connections I call gravity between myself and all that is.

This last Thanksgiving, 2019, I was blessed to spend a full day on my favorite wild and scenic river, in slow time of nature. Arriving at the river, Grandmother Beech gifted us with a shower of gold.



In thinking on love this morning, I realize that the only authentic love is the one that is all pervasive. I cannot truly love without realizing that I, too, contain these disparate factions within me and until I can embrace them fully, my love is incomplete.

What is LOVE? It is not a relationship, though in our culture we tend to equate the two. It is not need or obligation. It is not a showering of affection or a calling one home. It is a feeling no, the reality of sharing ONE consciousness. When I am awake to this ONE consciousness and all that is, there can be nothing but love. And then it is what we call unconditional love. But then what we forget is that there can not be unconditional love that is exclusive for only one being. If we can indeed experience authentic, conscious love, then we are in effect IN UNCONDITIONAL LOVE WITH THE ONE CONSCIOUSNESS WE COMPRISE. It is a FIELD we all exist in and love is the sensation of the field, when felt with our body/mind. It is resonance with the ONENESS. Then there was a whole world of learning about love from my feathered friend this last summer. I have still not been able to sit down and write about that gift. I hope I will be able to get some things down while I can still access them.